Finance committee  It's quite difficult for me to answer your question because I cannot talk to you about other sectors. I cannot talk about self-employed workers in general. I can only talk to you about the freelancers who are part of the whole cultural sector. You have to understand that the per

Finance committee  To be perfectly honest, there ideally should have been no delay between the CRB and the new measures. The hiatus that we are currently in concerns me greatly because I know that there is no support. This means people will leave. There is an exodus from the sector because everyone

Finance committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Thank you so much for inviting me and giving me the opportunity to talk to you about the French-speaking cultural sector. Who are we at the Union des artistes? First, the Union des artistes was founded in 1937. We are very proud that our union is a ve

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, certainly. I can tell you about French, because it's the medium that the Union des artistes operates in. Actually, UDA also has jurisdiction over all languages other than English across Canada; most people don't know that. I could also tell you about other languages that ar

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. Mr. Laflamme can add something if need be. That is actually one of our requests. The worst thing that could happen right now, probably, is a step backwards. As you know, the language barrier can be seen on the job. We feel it's extremely important to protect all the

Canadian Heritage committee  Okay.

Canadian Heritage committee  All right. Let’s admit that these media are the most popular. You know as well as I do that television enters our homes and radio enters our cars and houses. They belong to us and look like us. They convey our values. They reflect who we are and make us evolve together. In short

Canadian Heritage committee  We could go straight to questions while Ms. St-Onge’s technical problem is being solved, but I will finish my speech first. The fundamental elements that we want to work on first and foremost are, among others, Canadian ownership and, of course, the French language and our peopl

Canadian Heritage committee  If I may, I will first introduce the Union des artistes. Then I will hand it over to Pascale St-Onge, who will speak about the Fédération nationale des communications et de la culture. I might even venture to say that the Union des artistes is an old union in Canada, being in ex

Canadian Heritage committee  You probably know that Netflix offered us $500,000 to distribute to the people essentially working in audiovisual. The Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec made $2 million available through the Fondation des artistes. It's a bursary —let's call it that—of $2,00

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, that is also an avenue that could be explored and that could easily be studied. It's somewhat like the system we thought about at the outset. I will also say that we must not throw the baby out with the bath water. Some things in the CRB program, which was somewhat modelled

Canadian Heritage committee  Let me clarify. We are in the process of surveying our members about that sad reality. The Union des artists has 8,500 active members. In any given year, about 2,000 members do not earn a penny; their income is zero dollars. That leaves about 6,500 members. In our business, ther

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, it might be possible. It would certainly not be perfect, but it could be studied. We could also consider income averaging, as it already exists with income tax. That kind of measure more or less matches the reality of self-employed workers' incomes. Currently, using the p

Canadian Heritage committee  At the Union des artists, we sign variances on account of the Talents in View program, and that is why I raise the point today. It is actually possible to make a feature-length film with a budget of $150,000. People manage to do it but no one is paid. Basically, what you have is

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, and these are not just concerns. I sincerely think this is the reality in our sector. I would like to point out that we have mentioned it to all levels of government. We are very aware that a lot of money has been injected into the cultural sector, but there is very little